A Star Trek Reality - 20 Years to Build Enterprise

[)O( Hytegia )O(]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/47396187/ns/technology_and_science-space/#.T7BIusVlH9d

Thoughts?

Dibs on Captain.

 

[nudger1964]

its all a bit silly really.
with unlimited funds and some new as yet undiscovered form of propulsion, he may be able to design a star ship that could reach another star system - but it wouldnt look anything like that.

 

[CEbbesen]

Millenium falcon all the way.

 

[Visaki]

Earth ships from Babylon 5 from the time of the Mimbari war. Now there's a (more) realistic goal for a ship design.

 

[DepricatedZero]

as I understand, existing Ion drives use sufficiently little fuel that they could be used to reach another star. The problem is primarily that they don't provide sufficient thrust, so a dual propulsion system of some sort would be necessary for it to accelerate/brake at a reasonable rate.

 

[nudger1964]

yeah its all good in theory,
problem with nuclear powered ion drive is not just thrust, but the radiators the darn thing would need.
they would be enormous compared to the craft.

 

[Visaki]

yeah its all good in theory,
problem with nuclear powered ion drive is not just thrust, but the radiators the darn thing would need.
they would be enormous compared to the craft.

Couldn't you use that radiating energy as additional thrust if you just direct it well?

 

[nudger1964]

i dont fink you could no.
basically you are talking of a power plant like on a nuclear submarine.
the reator needs cooling and you need lots and lots of surface area to radiate the heat away.
a sub has a fairly obvious advantage, and can conduct the heat to the sea water
in space radiating the heat away is a huge problem - which is why the radiators would need to be huge
i should say, ion propulsion is used perfectly well on small scales, because it uses radioactive decay to provide power.
nuclear reactors are just a whole different ball game though.

 

[Dean]

I wouldn't really trust this as accurate, and I was inclined to be sceptical, provisionally, before I clicked the link, and it seems that my suspicions were justified, somewhat. It looks incredible (in the literal sense). For starters, aesthetics aside, it makes no sense whatsoever for it to be that shape. And no, we will not make an "island-hopping spaceship" in 20 years, even if our respective nations are plunged into a 21[sup]st[/sup]-century Cold-War, and feel that there is an "Enterprise Gap", or some other nefarious niche to be filled.

I suppose it's at least conceivable that making a space-station or hotel, or some such, that is able to maintain 1G (constant) gravity within it, would be a fairly excelling start. But even that,is very far removed from the reality, while all the resources we require are trapped in Earth's (too) large gravity-well. It seems ridiculously costly as an inevitable consequence of all this, both physically and monetarily. Even if we did have all the money, will, and resources, time, etc. that would be necessary for such an undertaking readily available to us, the realities, i.e. our limitations in technology, and so on, would likely mean that the vessel produced at the end of this process would look nothing like the Enterprise, at least not the one described in the Star Trek saga. The article itself also seems to contain fatal contradictions and discrepancies.

For a start, if it's feasible to achieve 1G acceleration and deceleration, then there would be no need to have anything "rotating", for example. If rotation is required, then why not just make the craft long and cylindrical in shape, so as to maximally expand the area(s) of the ship in 1G of near-continuous gravity. . . ?

While we're on it, please note that , ignoring the fact that 1G acceleration is about is implausible as the FTL (faster-than-light) i.e. warp-drive travel with, in the article's own terms "current technology" , if we could actually attain 1G acceleration in the near-future, we could quite easily get to Mars with it in relative comfort, rather than merely ensuring that the passengers are maintained within an environment of constant earth-gravity!

As a matter of fact(!), accelerating at 1G , which equates to approximately 8.91 m/s[sup]2[/sup] relative to the mass (a la gravitational-well) of the Earth , it would be physically possible to reach the half-way point from Earth to Mars in such a craft (well, perhaps a more efficiently designed one); in just under 24 hours. So it would take 2 days or so to reach Mars's orbit from the Earth's orbit if we were capable of attaining such speeds. Perhaps 23.5 hours to accelerate, and reach midpoint, then half an hour to cool the engines off and turn around (which, for the crew, would result in a rather mesmerising experience, i.e. zero-G conditions for a few tens of minutes), re-ignite, and then another 23.5 hours with which to slow the ship down.

Naturally, all of this is contingent upon Mar's being at its point of closest "approach" (or the best there is to it in existence) to the Earth, which equates to something like . . . 72[sup]6[/sup] km. At fullest acceleration (in this case maximum of 1G), we could reach Mars in 27 hours, but this of course would be a painfully stupid idea, because we would be going so fast by the time we got somewhere near it that we wouldn't get a chance to see the planet for very long . . . and with all of that set aside, it is not clear that some of Star Trek's ideas, e.g. the matter-transporter or the warp-drive (FTL) are even physically or (nonexclusive "or") logically possible. Even if they are, they are far removed from modern technology, even on the far limit of what modern-physics can tell us.

Don't expect any great leaps in acceleration either, even with ion-drive propulsion. As for the part that states that a thousand people can be on board at one time . . . consider: the average adult human consumes about 2.702kg of food per day. And this means to accommodate up to and including 1000 people for as little as one day, you will need 2700kg of food. Even assuming that freeze-drying the food can reduce its weight by half (which is very generous, IMO); this would mean that the ship would require an internal food-storage capacity of 243 metric tons (for how long they're claiming it will take to get to Mars), to make the round trip to Mars and back.

And this also has to accommodate for the quarters etc. of all those 1000 people, unless you just crammed them all into a relatively small chamber, and in which case they wouldn't be able to maintain their sanity for very long. And this doesn't even account for other factors, i.e. water, which is used for more than just drinking, and would have to be recycled in some form once it ran out (it wouldn't be that long before it would become saturated, in fact it's possible to calculate how long it would take) . . .not to mention oxygen. And I haven't even dealt with pricing and alike, and whether or not NASA or any other independent group would be willing to pay (even in part) of such a project.

In sum, it looks like "BTE Dan" is a mathematically naà¯ve à¼ber-geek ( :ugeek: ) who has watched too many science-fiction films. I'd bet long odds that he's also a fan of Ray Kurzweil and the technological "singularity" concept that he's done a good job of propagating. . . there are probably other idiosyncracies in that article that have eluded my detection, hmm . . .

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

The entire project is completly idiotic, and the first thing that comes into my mind is, "this must be a joke". It is not a matter that you couldn't build a space ship that looks like the Enterprise from Start Trek, but people aren't stupid enough to go out of their way to waste money on stupid and useless design so that some one could have a geek gasm. You could do better cheaper, and frankly I would rather set piles of money on fire than to invest in such a thing.
And I guarantee you the first thing that the people he is trying to get money from will ask is not how much it will cost but rather from what mental institution has he escaped from.

 

[nudger1964]

@Dean.

i think you got hold of the wrong end of the stick a bit there.
from how i read it, the 1G gravity comes from the rotating wheel. the constant acceleration is just how ion drive works...i dont think the 1G and the constant acceleration where linked in any way.

1G of artificial gravity is pretty easy and it looks roughtly right for a rotation speed of 2 rpm for a disk that size.
that said, there are much better ways of doing it.. and cheaper

i suspect this guy is just a 15yr old with too much time on his hands

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

i suspect this guy is just a 15yr old with too much time on his hands

Star Trek is to old for that, today's 15yo don't know what the hell Star Trek is, we are getting old buddy.

 

[nudger1964]

well, lets say he probably lays somewhere in between a 15yr old and a systems engineer of 30yrs experience for a fortune 500 company.

to be honest, as daft as it all is, i dont think it does any harm to fire the imagination of todays youngsters - who will probably be the only ones to take it on face value. Is that a bad thing? i donno, maybe they will learn a little physics as a result

just so as not to come over as too insulting to youngsters - the ones who already know a bit of physics wouldnt be taking it seriously either

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

well, lets say he probably lays somewhere in between a 15yr old and a systems engineer of 30yrs experience for a fortune 500 company.

to be honest, as daft as it all is, i dont think it does any harm to fire the imagination of todays youngsters - who will probably be the only ones to take it on face value. Is that a bad thing? i donno, maybe they will learn a little physics as a result

just so as not to come over as too insulting to youngsters - the ones who already know a bit of physics wouldnt be taking it seriously either

The guys in his website bio says he was inspiered by startrek in 1966, he must be a 60 yo dude.

 

[nudger1964]

maybe - guess that just makes him a foolish old goat then.

ive had a browse around the site - as much as it will let me, i dont think its up to the traffic hes getting - and really i think its all pretty harmless. technically incredibly naive of course.
There was some talk a while back about a peoples project for a generation ship for interstella travel. While clearly not realistic, as a theoretical science project to engage peoples interest the idea had a lot going for it

just to go back to the acceleration thing...hes actually suggesting a constant acceleration of 0.002g. i think he has basically read some PR stuff on a nasa site and thats about the extent of his technical analysis

 

[nudger1964]

just on propulsion again,
there actually is a concept that we probably could do with todays technology that could accelerate a craft to perhaps 3%of c.
It sounds crazy, but it is an idea often banded around by engineers and did have a small development program several decades ago.
what you do is have a thrust plate on the back of your craft, and you throw out a series of nuclear bombs.
The project suggested up to 1000 small yeil devices would provide acceleration up to those speeds.
It would possibly work for a probe - not much good for people unless you had a way of stopping the darn thing.

 

[Visaki]

just on propulsion again,
there actually is a concept that we probably could do with todays technology that could accelerate a craft to perhaps 3%of c.
It sounds crazy, but it is an idea often banded around by engineers and did have a small development program several decades ago.
what you do is have a thrust plate on the back of your craft, and you throw out a series of nuclear bombs.
The project suggested up to 1000 small yeil devices would provide acceleration up to those speeds.
It would possibly work for a probe - not much good for people unless you had a way of stopping the darn thing.

I thought the speculated speed was in the 10%c region. Too bad nuclear tests in athmosphere / space were banned just as the team was ready to propose a real test with real nukes.

By the way stopping a nuclear pulse craft isn't really a problem. You just turn the thing around and lob some more nukes down the hatch.

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

My take on nuclear purpolsion.... you mad?
Contrary to popular belief, explosives do not make good engins, specially in space.

 

[nudger1964]

I thought the speculated speed was in the 10%c region. Too bad nuclear tests in athmosphere / space were banned just as the team was ready to propose a real test with real nukes.

By the way stopping a nuclear pulse craft isn't really a problem. You just turn the thing around and lob some more nukes down the hatch.

i figured that stopping might be a bit of a problem as you would be flying right into the blast. Plus how do you hurl it infront of you at greater velocity than you are traveling- maybe it would be possible, just sounds bit scarey to me. I think there was some reasonable seperation required between the blast center and the trust plate.
I have heard some very speculative ideas claim 10% c, but the from what i have read 3%c was what was claimed by the explosive propulsion project - you may be right though, its just what i read.

 

[nudger1964]

My take on nuclear purpolsion.... you mad?
Contrary to popular belief, explosives do not make good engins, specially in space.

why is it mad?
of all the concepts for travel within full percentages of speed of light, it seemed the most realistic with current technology to me.